Melnitz

by Charles Lewinsky

  Deft hands.

  How the register had tried to give them a copy of Mein Kampf, as was the regulation for all newlyweds, had automatically started saying the words and then broken off mid-sentence because it wasn’t an Aryan wedding and the regulation didn’t apply. Many other regulations, but not that one. How he had then very hastily had them sign the wedding certificate, first the groom, Dr Arthur Meijer, then the bride, Rosa Recha Meijer, née Bernstein, widowed name Pollack, and then the witnesses, Trude Speyer and Dr Saul Merzbach. Rosa had been at teacher training college with Trude; Dr Merzbach had brought her children into the world and, now that he was no longer allowed to work at the hospital, he was her family doctor. Arthur remembered the name; he had read it at the bottom of the health certificate that Irma and Moses had needed to travel to Heiden.

  Then, at Merzbach’s house, they had celebrated. Four people eating sandwiches and drinking Sekt. Could you call it celebrating? One bottle of Sekt, and yet Arthur had managed to get slightly light-headed, well, all the excitement, and he hadn’t eaten a thing all day.

  After his dismissal from the hospital Dr Merzbach had had to set up a surgery at home; no one would rent him anything. The familiar smell of carbolic soap and cleanliness made Arthur careless, and of course the alcohol and the excitement. When Trude discovered a gramophone in the next room and insisted that the bride and groom dance together, right now, a little mitzvah tantz, he didn’t even try to get out of it. Then of course he had tripped and nearly tumbled over with Rosa. Whereupon Dr Merzbach wanted to give him a pair of his shoes, with heels. No, no, he could happily take them, sooner or later most things would have to be given away in any case. He had made some inquiries: doctors were needed in South America.

  But then the shoes hadn’t fit.

  Trude, who was good at such things, repaired the seam of his jacket.

  Their suitcases had stood side by side the whole time, the picture had lodged in Arthur’s mind, his own, broken and tied together, and her two with the light patches where she had scratched off the stickers, the last remains of beautiful experiences that she didn’t want to be reminded of any more. Two suitcases, she took no more than that from her old life. She had taken her luggage to Dr Merzbach’s that afternoon. She didn’t want to go back to the little room in the house of her uncle with the heart condition.

  They spent the night at Dr Merzbach’s too, the few hours until they had to leave again. Rosa slept on the sofa and Arthur in an armchair. They kept their clothes on, and he preferred it that way.

  He couldn’t imagine it.

  Rosa had asked that no one accompany them to the station, but Trude had come along anyway, and cried a little. Outside it was already starting to rain. Just individual droplets at first, so that you could follow the trace of each single drip on the glass, and then more and more until the landscape blurred as if behind frosted glass.

  ‘In one of your letters,’ she said quietly, ‘you wrote to say that I should enjoy the good days. Do you think they’re starting now?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  She shook her head. ‘These Goliaths! They even want to be responsible for the weather.’

  When she laughed, she squinted very slightly, not like Irma, but still noticeably. He was pleased by the observation. Precious things belong to one much more when one knows their hidden little flaws.

  He had been mistaken: she was a beautiful woman after all.

  While he . . .

  Would she expect caresses from him? Or even put up with them? Arthur felt guilty again.

  At the wedding he had kissed her, of course, but it had had nothing to do with the two of them, it had just been a formality. ‘Sit down, give me your papers, kiss the bride!’ A ritual. When his patients got undressed in front of him, they weren’t really naked either, but had just brought their bodies to him as one takes a watch that has stopped working to the watchmaker.

  But she wasn’t a patient. She was . . .

  A slender waist under the flower-patterned dress.

  She was now his wife.

  Rosa Meijer.

  ‘Rosa Recha Meijer.’

  He must have said the name out loud, because she nodded and repeated it a few times, like someone who wants to commit to memory a word in a new language.

  Rosa Recha Meijer.

  ‘Will you be able to get used to it?’

  She took his hand and very slowly ran her finger along the outline of his. She held her head tilted, and a strand of hair fell into her face.

  ‘You have good hands,’ she said at last, and even though she might not have answered his question, he was still pleased.

  At the next station two noisy women pushed their way into their compartment, talking about their husbands and their neighbours and paid no heed to the couple by the window.

  ‘They’re all equally annoying,’ said one, and the other agreed and confirmed that that was how it was, but you had to take them as they came, there were no others.

  Anyone who was under illusions about people had only themselves to blame, said the first, and the other one nodded and said, they weren’t as stupid as that any more, by no means.

  Then they took thick sausage sandwiches out of their baskets, and choked their irritation with humanity down with them.

  Rosa and Arthur looked at each other, and Rosa squinted very slightly. Nothing connects two people more than being able to laugh at the same things.

  There were no problems at the Swiss border. The border guard looked at their marriage certificate, studied the date, paused, then put his hand to his cap and said, ‘Many congratulations.’

  They changed in Basel, and soon they were sitting in the train bound for home. ‘Home,’ repeated Rosa, and that too was a new word.

  ‘What sort of flat do you have?’

  ‘Too small for four people,’ he said, too hastily. ‘But perhaps Désirée will swap with us.’ Now, of course he had to explain to her who Désirée was, and why she was called Déchirée, what had happened with Alfred and why his brother François was a goy. He grew talkative without noticing.

  ‘I think I’m going to get on with Désirée,’ said Rosa.

  Then they were already pulling in to Baden, where there was also much to tell, they passed through Dietikon and Schlieren, the train slowed down, it wasn’t even afternoon, and they were in Zurich.

  They got out, he carried her big suitcases and she his small one. Suddenly he stopped and said, ‘We should take them to the left luggage office.’

  ‘Why not home?’

  ‘We could take a detour via Rorschach.’ And in response to the question in her face, ‘That’s where you catch the train to Heiden.’

  When she was happy, her face was much less precise.

  In Heiden she ran down the gravel path to the children’s home, in completely inappropriate shoes, tripped in the rut of a cartwheel and fell over. When she struggled back to her feet, unkempt and laughing, the heel of her shoe had broken off.

  ‘We’re a match,’ said Arthur.

  She had torn her stockings and scraped one of her knees. ‘You marry a doctor,’ she said, ‘and when you need him, he just ties a hanky around your leg.’

  Fräulein Württemberger wasn’t pleased to see them. She was trying, with hourly, daily, weekly timetables, to drive from the Wartheim the chaos that lurks everywhere there are people and above all children, and now here was this Dr Meijer, turning up on a day that wasn’t even scheduled for the examination of the Women’s Association children, he just stood in her office and had even brought his wife with him, when everyone said he was a confirmed bachelor. A woman with torn stockings and broken shoes. Like a tramp. And then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he wanted her to call Irma and Moses, right there and then, when they were on kitchen duty, and if they were four hands short in the kitchen her whole plan would fall apart, and dinner would never be on the tables on time. And they had already had enough of a fuss with all the special treatment th
at Irma needed because of her illness.

  ‘She isn’t ill any more,’ said Arthur.

  I see, said Fräulein Württemberger and searched for escapees from her bun, I see, she had recently sometimes had the impression that the girl was significantly better, but on the other hand . . .

  ‘She is quite well again.’

  How he claimed to know that without even having seen the child.

  ‘Under your good care it could hardly be otherwise,’ said Arthur.

  And then such scenes as there were – in Fräulein Württemberger’s personal office! – scenes were played out, with shouting and hugs and kisses and tears, scenes that simply had no room in a children’s home run on scientific principles. And this Dr Meijer, who was somehow to blame for it all, she would find out what sort of a game he was playing, this Dr Meijer stood there with his arms folded and looked as if he’d won a prize. And let the children kiss him too, even the girl, a grown man. Uncouth it was, yes, that was the word: uncouth.

  And then, when the children’s things were to be packed away, right now, because they were going to take them away, just take them away, just like that without further ado, when any references to rules and duties were simply swept away, Fräulein Württemberger gave in surprisingly quickly. She just insisted that Dr Meijer confirm in writing that he had now assumed full and complete responsibility for the two children. You had to cover your back, whatever happened. Whatever might have been behind this matter, she was glad she no longer had anything to do with it. Yes, she was glad. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as they say.

  She even sent Köbeli and his handcart with them to the station, just to be sure that they were really leaving.

  On the train the children fought about who was going to be allowed to sit on Rosa’s lap. She decided, with the Wisdom of Solomon, that they should switch at each stop; whoever’s turn it wasn’t had to sit on Arthur’s lap instead. When Irma pressed up against him for the first time and put her thin arms around his neck, he had to take off his glasses and rub the bridge of his nose. His eyes were inflamed after the long journey, he explained.

  Since her mother had been there, Irma seemed to have got younger. It was probably because she was able to shed her responsibilities.

  ‘I did that,’ she whispered in Arthur’s ear. ‘Because I was so good at being sick.’

  When they changed in Rorschach Arthur bought four bags of sherbet powder at the kiosk, strawberry flavour, of course, and Irma showed them both how to spit blood. Moses was frightened of the game at first, until Arthur explained to him that sherbet powder was the best medicine there was. Then he joined in enthusiastically and slobbered it all over his pullover with great delight.

  An elderly gentleman irritably folded his paper and complained to Arthur about his children making so much noise in the train compartment, where they were not, after all, alone. ‘And we’re not even his children,’ said Moses.

  When they arrived at last it was already evening. They had to take a taxi, so many suitcases had come with them from Kassel and Heiden. Moses wanted to know why Arthur’s suitcase had such a big hole in it, and Rosa said, ‘So that the fresh air can get at his things.’

  There weren’t enough beds in the flat. Arthur was a bachelor with no practical sense, and hadn’t thought of such things. But they put mattresses on the floor and dug out some blankets. Arthur retreated to his bedroom and Rosa and the children slept side by side on the floor, as if they were at a holiday camp. It was probably the best solution; Irma and Moses wouldn’t have let go of their mother in any case.

  To be able to have breakfast the following day, they first had to go shopping together. Irma was very proud that she was able to explain Swiss money to her mother.

  Arthur put the good Sarreguemines plates on the table and they all ate whatever came to hand, bread and honey and peaches and chocolate. Because they had forgotten to get cocoa when they were out shopping, the children had a little bit of coffee poured into their milk and felt very grown-up.

  At that breakfast Arthur discovered a little foible of his wife’s: every time she took a bite she licked the corner of her mouth clean with the tip of her tongue. He stared at her with such fascination that she asked him, ‘What are you learning by heart this time?’

  Afterwards the children explored the flat. Moses discovered the drawing that he had made for Arthur, and was very proud of it. Then he wanted to count the books on the shelf, but there were too many. ‘Are they all full of stories?’ he asked. His sister explained to him from the superiority of her twelve years that Arthur was a doctor, so he only had books that you could learn things from.

  ‘You can learn things from novels as well,’ said Arthur and winked at her. Irma would have liked to perform her trick again, but there was no sherbet powder left.

  The children found the bronze-covered oak-leaf wreath particularly interesting. When Arthur announced that he had won it as a wrestler, Irma squinted at him dubiously, but it seemed quite straightforward to Moses that a Goliath should win every battle.

  They also tried in vain to liberate the bottle locked in the Tantalus, in which a darkened residue of the golden fluid still sloshed back and forth. Irma refused to believe that no one had managed to drink a drop of it in nearly a hundred years. ‘I’d just have broken the lock,’ she said.

  ‘And what if the stuff didn’t taste nice?’

  ‘I wouldn’t care,’ said Irma. ‘At least I’d know.’

  Arthur had decided not really to be there that day, and not to call anybody. Tomorrow or the day after it would still be soon enough to inform his family about all the surprising changes in his life. By tomorrow or the day after, he had tried to persuade himself, he could certainly have found the correct form for that communication.

  But then there was a ring at the flat doorbell, and when he opened up, Hinda was standing there and handed him a big bouquet.

  ‘Where’s your wife?’ she asked.

  He must have looked stupid, with his startled facial expression, because she said very pityingly, ‘Arthur!’ just as she had, as the older sister, always said ‘Arthur!’ when her little brother didn’t understand the world. ‘When someone from Zurich gets married, here or elsewhere, the banns are posted at the city hall for four weeks. Didn’t you think about that?’

  No, he hadn’t thought about that.

  ‘The whole community’s talking about it. Zalman says, “If he wants to make a secret of it, then let him have his secret.” But now that it’s happened . . . I’m just too curious. Where is she?’

  They knew everything.

  They knew nothing at all, because there hadn’t been anything about the two children in the banns.

  ‘Otherwise I’d have brought presents for them!’ Hinda was very disappointed.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Irma. ‘We’ll take them later, too.’ Then they all talked at the same time, couldn’t find any words and therefore used a lot, had to look at each other and hug and look again, and Arthur for once didn’t stand aside, but was right in the middle, awkwardly proud and proudly awkward.

  ‘You’re a lucky chap,’ Hinda whispered in his ear. ‘Where did you actually meet her?’

  ‘At the register office, of course,’ said Arthur. ‘Where else does one meet one’s wife?’

  73

  Chanele’s death was as orderly as her life.

  Even in her confusion, at the home she never forgot to lay out the things she needed for the next day; she had always done it, so that the following morning you could get dressed and go to the shop without wasting any time. But she didn’t get up, she just lay there and was no longer in a hurry. Her body displayed no unpleasant outward signs of death, as if she had given practical thought to that as well, and wanted to make the chevra’s work easier. Only her thin white hair lay tangled on the pillow, a disorderly sight that she would have not have allowed anyone to see during her lifetime. The dark sheitel by which she was known waited on its stand and was no longer need
ed.

  The white line of the eyebrows ran through her face, a sum that’s been added up and is over and done with.

  In an old people’s home dying is nothing unusual, no more than a final hurdle that everyone has to take. You expect it and are prepared for it. Routine. Most of the fuss is usually caused by the choice of who is next in line for the room, particularly this room, given that Chanele had had the best one in the whole house, the one with the view of the street from where you could see visitors arriving from a long way off, even if you didn’t recognise them any more.

  On the telephone to François, Frau Olchev said what she always said to the bereaved: the worst had now really come to the worst, but she had seen to it that everything that needed to be done had been done, and all the preparations made. Herr Meijer could rely on her completely, she said, and needn’t worry about a thing. Even though she knew it couldn’t really be a comfort for him, of course not, it might do him good to hear that his mother – such a lovely person! – had gone to sleep quite peacefully, you might say, if he would allow her the image, that she had slipped through the gates of heaven without having to wait outside for long.

  And as she said, everything had been organised. She, Frau Olchev, had just assumed that Herr Meijer would be happy if she ordered the chevra, so that everything would be done according to the old tradition, although he himself might . . .

  And so on, and so on, even after François had long since stopped listening.

  The funeral was held two days later. Canton regulations meant that it couldn’t be performed the same day, as Jewish customs would have dictated, but things went very quickly even so. No circulars had been sent out, but a surprising number of mourners still turned up. Such news spread even without mail. But only a few people were able to come from Zurich, because of course Chanele was buried next to Janki, in the old cemetery of the Aargau Jews, and it took at least half a day to get there and then travel back afterwards. Even though they would have liked to pay koved to the family in person, one can’t necessarily travel all the highways and byways to do so.